I was the civil engineer in a design charette for a parking lot. The client wanted trees to provide shade for the cars. He asked the landscape architect to plant "trees that birds don't like" so the cars don't get showered with bird poop.

The landscape architect looked like this =>

I give him bonus points for not suggesting that they put diapers on the birds.

If he wasn't specifying shade trees, there's the germ of an idea there, because birds like some trees more than others, depending on whether/what kind of fruit they have, and the size of the branches (for roosting and nests). But things like dwarf ornamental cherries aren't going to provide useful shade for cars. (And of course there are trees that people think of as small because they haven't been popular street trees for very long, so a lot of people have only seen young, small Callery pears.)

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Any advice that requires the use of a time machine may safely be ignored.

I work at a curtain shop. When you sew coated fabric drops together to make blackout curtains, there will be little pinpricks of light visible along the seam lines. It can't be helped; this is what happens when you stick a needle through the lightproof coating.

We regularly have people ask if we can do something about the pinpricks. Answer: Sorry, no. These people are generally understanding, and the question is fair enough because we used to be able to do something about it - we used to be able to order jars of the liquid coating and paint it along the seams to fill in the holes. (It was a pain and a half and took more time and effort than it was worth, and now it's really hard to find the liquid coating anyway, so file that under Things We Don't Do Any More.)

For the real Harry Potter moment, though, we had one customer ask if we could make a seam go away. The showroom staff thought she was asking about the pinpricks of light, and started explaining, only to have her interrupt and say no, no, she meant could we make a multiple-drop curtain without seams. As in, she thought we could somehow fuse or graft the pieces of fabric together so that you couldn't tell it had been joined.

Pardon me if I'm being dense, but can't you layer the blackout fabric and liner and tuck the seams inside? I seem to recall my cheap store-bought blackout curtains having this design. I'm not good at technical sewing terms, but it's like a pillowcase, turned inside-out and finished.

I mean, your last customer is definitely in the wrong, but I am wondering whether that's a solution for the rest.

You are not being dense! That is exactly what we do with curtains that have a fashion fabric in front of a blackout lining. It just doesn't work with curtains where the fashion fabric has a blackout coating applied to the back of it and there is no separate lining.

You reminded me of a term from the past. A "French seam" might solve the problem, but would be cumbersome if the fabric were heavy.

I work at a curtain shop. When you sew coated fabric drops together to make blackout curtains, there will be little pinpricks of light visible along the seam lines. It can't be helped; this is what happens when you stick a needle through the lightproof coating.

We regularly have people ask if we can do something about the pinpricks. Answer: Sorry, no. These people are generally understanding, and the question is fair enough because we used to be able to do something about it - we used to be able to order jars of the liquid coating and paint it along the seams to fill in the holes. (It was a pain and a half and took more time and effort than it was worth, and now it's really hard to find the liquid coating anyway, so file that under Things We Don't Do Any More.)

For the real Harry Potter moment, though, we had one customer ask if we could make a seam go away. The showroom staff thought she was asking about the pinpricks of light, and started explaining, only to have her interrupt and say no, no, she meant could we make a multiple-drop curtain without seams. As in, she thought we could somehow fuse or graft the pieces of fabric together so that you couldn't tell it had been joined.

Pardon me if I'm being dense, but can't you layer the blackout fabric and liner and tuck the seams inside? I seem to recall my cheap store-bought blackout curtains having this design. I'm not good at technical sewing terms, but it's like a pillowcase, turned inside-out and finished.

I mean, your last customer is definitely in the wrong, but I am wondering whether that's a solution for the rest.

You are not being dense! That is exactly what we do with curtains that have a fashion fabric in front of a blackout lining. It just doesn't work with curtains where the fashion fabric has a blackout coating applied to the back of it and there is no separate lining.

You reminded me of a term from the past. A "French seam" might solve the problem, but would be cumbersome if the fabric were heavy.

Any sort of seam that involves sticking a needle through the fabric is going to have the same problem - and yes, coated curtain fabric is always stiff and heavy. We've had some that we were comparing to cardboard!

It's always something. A patron asked us to get a movie she wanted to see from a library outside our system. The movie in question: Anna Karenina. The 1935 version. The ninety minute 1935 version. The one that fits on one DVD.

She wanted to know where part two was. She insisted there HAD to be a part two. My coworker asked "Did the credits run?" Yes. "Did the screen say THE END?" Yes. But there HAS to be more because they simply could NOT end the movie like that! They just couldn't! It was much too short! There had to be more to the story! Get her part two!

I've put the 2013 Kiera Knightly/ Matthew McFayden/Jude Law DVD on hold for her. It's longer, but I believe it ends pretty much the same way......

AND...the lady who wanted my coworker to deduce, based on the name of the moving truck outside her neighbor's house, where it was her neighbors were moving to. (Are people so bored they have to sit around and dream this stuff up?)

Same lady different day--MY turn--she can't get through to her favorite little Mom and Pop store down the block. Something horrible must have happened. They must be lying dead in the store because.....they aren't picking up their phone! I finally called the store that was next door to them and they checked in and said "They have the phone off the hook because some crazy woman keeps calling them up to complain about how lonely she is....." I called the patron and told her they were having phone difficulties and had taken the phone off the hook until it was fixed.

I hope this lady never figures out I live just down the street from her.

And I was just reminded by another coworker of this lady who was in yesterday.

Background: we charge 50 cents for color printouts. This lady was made aware of this before she started printing a couple dozen pictures. We printed them for her and she picked out six from the fifteen or more she insisted we print and said "I don't want those." We weren't inclined to argue at the end of the day, so we said "Okay, we'll just sell you the seven you selected."

I prepared to tear the rest of the prints into quarter to make scrap paper for notes. And she said "Can I have those papers to take home for scrap?"

I said "Sure, if you want to pay for them."

She couldn't understand that just because she had designated them "scrap" paper didn't mean she didn't owe us for printing them out.

And I was just reminded by another coworker of this lady who was in yesterday.

Background: we charge 50 cents for color printouts. This lady was made aware of this before she started printing a couple dozen pictures. We printed them for her and she picked out six from the fifteen or more she insisted we print and said "I don't want those." We weren't inclined to argue at the end of the day, so we said "Okay, we'll just sell you the seven you selected."

Office Depot would have charged her for all of them, whether she liked them or not. They have their copiers set up now so that you swipe a card in them (either a credit card or a copy-machine card that you load with a few dollars) and you get charged for every copy you make. Is it annoying when the machine cuts off the edge of the picture and you have to adjust it and make another, all on your dime? Yes, of course. But I'm sure they were losing money because of patrons just like Yarnspinner's.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Our library used to "forgive" people all the pages they didn't want to pay for. It drove me crazy. We'd complain about it to administration, but they said that at 15 cents a page (for black and white, all we had), they were still coming out ahead, so it wasn't worth it. But what drove me crazy was that all the people who *did* pay for every page they printed were basically subsidizing the people who would print out 50 pages and never come back for them, or come back and only want 5 of them.

I did hear that they eventually went to a pay-first model after I left.

I am really good at multiplying by 15 now, though.

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Emily is 10 years old! 1/07Jenny is 8 years old! 10/08Charlotte is 7 years old! 8/10Megan is 4 years old! 10/12Lydia is 2 years old! 12/14Baby Charlie expected 9/17

SonIL told us about one this evening. He does IT work. A woman at his workplace insisted that she didn't like Windows 7 because it didn't have the features that she wanted. She demanded that he reprogram Win7 so that it would now have those features.

In one hour.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

SonIL told us about one this evening. He does IT work. A woman at his workplace insisted that she didn't like Windows 7 because it didn't have the features that she wanted. She demanded that he reprogram Win7 so that it would now have those features.

SonIL told us about one this evening. He does IT work. A woman at his workplace insisted that she didn't like Windows 7 because it didn't have the features that she wanted. She demanded that he reprogram Win7 so that it would now have those features.

SonIL told us about one this evening. He does IT work. A woman at his workplace insisted that she didn't like Windows 7 because it didn't have the features that she wanted. She demanded that he reprogram Win7 so that it would now have those features.

In one hour.

Give her Windows 8

Aw, that's just mean!!

Going into the "How Stupid Are You?" files: A woman bought popcorn, asked for extra salt, and poured all over the popcorn herself. When her movie was over, she storms out, and bawls out my co - worker who sold her the popcorn. How dare he let her put that much salt on! It was far too much, and he should have somehow known that she would hate that much salt, when she poured it herself!

Clearly, personal responsibility lessons were lost on this one.

Also, all underage kids going to see R - rated movies: Yes, you really do need an adult with you. You really, really do. I'll get slapped with a felony if I let you in, as will everyone else who's working right now, probably. You can get your tickets refunded, so you're not out the money, but I cannot let you in unless you have a parent or guardian. No amount of begging and pleases will make me become a felon for you. I wouldn't do it for my own family; what in the Sam Hill makes you think I'll do it for a random stranger?

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"It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends" - Harry Potter